Saturday, March 21, 2009

I've learned that both Prick of the Spindle and Shoots & Vines are doing reviews of The Torturer's Horse, my e-book from Recycled Karma Press. They should be out within the next week or two. Keep your figures crossed that they're good.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I'm doing a reading on campus when we get back from spring back. I've been playing in my head with different sequences for the poems I'll read. I'm thinking of starting with "Aria for My Daughter," which I wrote for Darla and was just published by JuiceBox (see the links to the left). This is the first of my readings she won't be able to attend. She'll back at school, too, by then.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Love Is a UFO, my eighth chapbook, has been published. I received a carton with 40 copies from Pudding House, the publisher, over the weekend. I'm not fond of the cover art, about which I had no input, but the chapbook itself is firmly bound and printed on good paper. I'm skeptical it's going to receive much attention. The publisher does no marketing. Selling it is my obligation. And I thought writing it was tough.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Well, I made it to spring break. . . and without too many papers to grade or stories to edit. I hope to do some editing, though, on the chapters for Ethics and Entertainment, my book for McFarland, over the next week. Speaking of hope, I'd been hoping to hear from Hampshire by now (or someday), but no such luck. It makes me wonder how I appear to evaluators. Maybe they can't believe I've done all the kinds of writing I say I've done (I have). Maybe they can't conceive of a journalism professor who's also capable of teaching poetry (I am). Or maybe they're skeptical of a tenured full professor who claims to want new challenges (I do). Whatever the reason, and it may be one I haven't listed here, I haven't gotten the call.

Friday, March 6, 2009

This week I was interviewed about my writing by Cynthia Reeser, editor-in-chief of Prick of the Spindle, for the March issue, recorded two poems over the phone for the March issue of Dirty Napkin, had three poems accepted in three different journals, and a couple others published elsewhere. . . and I still feel like a failure. My classes aren't going as well as I wish. Maybe it's just midterm blahs, but the students seem bored or distracted no matter which persona I use to try to engage them -- loud, intimidating, intellectual, humorous, insane. The quality of the writing I'm getting from some of them -- Journalism I is particularly depressing me, but Advanced Literature of Journalism isn't always bang up either -- suggests that I've been talking about writing while wearing a bucket over my head. The only thing they hear is a muffled rumble; the only thing I hear is the hollow echo of my own voice.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Two new reviews of Tomorrowland, one on NewPages.com and the other on One Night Stanzas, both extremely positive and, perhaps more important, both on target in their interpretations of the book. How rare that is, and how gratifying.